Reading the Catholic epistles as a collection, with particular attention to their ethical motifs

This thesis evaluates a recent scholarly movement led by David Nienhuis, Robert Wall and Darian Lockett to interpret the Catholic Epistles as a collection and develops a new reading strategy to build on and extend the strategies provided by previous scholarship. In chapter 2, I develop a method of identifying resonances between passages (both verbal and conceptual) and placing those resonant passages into an interpretive network. This network can then be used to assess interpretive options in other resonant passages elsewhere in the collection.

In light of the relatively neglected status of the Catholic Epistles in the field of New Testament ethics, I selected a range of ethical motifs, in order to assess the hermeneutical utility of the collective approach. In addition to addressing this lacuna of scholarship, these motifs demonstrate different facets of the collective approach to the Catholic Epistles. That is, these chapters explore how the collective approach handles a prominent motif in Greco-Roman ethical discourse (mimesis), a contentious topic in scholarship on the Catholic Epistles (love) and an exhortation whose significance is only recognisable when the Catholic Epistles are approached as a collection (restoration of an errant believer).

Mimesis is a prominent topic in Greco-Roman ethical discourse and has recently been recognised by scholarship as a significant theme within 1 John. Chapter 3, therefore, demonstrates the heuristic ability of the collective approach, in so far as it uncovers an array of passages from the Catholic Epistles that relate to mimesis, as well as offering a unified framework in which the two prevailing methods of identifying mimetic material can cooperate. In this way, the collective approach contributes to mimetic studies by casting a wide net in its identification of mimetic material. Having traced the major contours of the network which emerges around the theme of imitation, this thesis then critically assesses and rejects a recent proposal that the imitatio Christi motif is present in the phrase τὴν πίστιν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ in James 2:1.

Chapter 4 explores whether the collective approach might relieve the Johannine Epistles of the scholarly critique that their love is exclusively intra-communal as well as vague and impractical. Having developed a robust network of associated passages, surrounding the motif of love in the Catholic Epistles, I conclude that the network actually amplifies the intra-communal nature of love in the Johannine Epistles, and vice-versa, the Johannine Epistles amplify intra-communal interpretive options present elsewhere in the collection. In terms of practical application though, love is related to a number of practical exhortations across the collection relating to prayer, care for the poor, favouritism towards the rich, etc. which concretise the otherwise abstract commands to love in the Johannine Epistles.

Chapter 5 explores the relatively underappreciated commands towards restoration of an errant believer that are found at the conclusion of a number of the Catholic Epistles. Previous scholarship has not provided a treatment of this motif that takes all three of these passages into account. In addition, I integrate a range of other passages into the network by means of verbal resonances. The integration of 1 Peter 5:10 is particularly significant in this regard, because the restoration from sin in this passage (and not exclusively from physical suffering) is amplified by the network, as it uses comparable terms for restoration from sin elsewhere in the collection. Through the inclusion of these additional passages, a minor corollary of the motif surfaces, namely, the need for believers to have ongoing preservation in their faith. Jude 24 and 1 John 5:18 both describe the believer’s preservation from sin, although they may attribute it to different agents. Jude 24 clearly attributes the agency of preservation to God, and 1 John 5:18 potentially attributes the believer’s preservation to the believer themselves or to the Father. I argue that the collection amplifies the former reading. Another interpretive possibility arises though when Jude 24 and 1 John 5:18 are treated in the context of the collection: that the reason why believers are kept “free from stumbling” (ἀπταίστους) is because the evil does not “touch” (ἅπτεται) them.